and uh if you can just go through the plans yeah uh rachel went through the photos of the inside
which meets the existing building code after something's approved we will of course send it
to lni for the use and occupancy along with the rental license the diagram in front of you
pertains to the parking and legalization of the existing parking stall according to the zoning
code the parking stalls are undersized but they would meet the definition of compact stalls we
had the line of sight in the m950 form completed by our traffic engineer and the plans in front of
you reviewed and approved by the streets department as part of this application
i'm happy to answer any questions that you may have
did did you do you have someone adopt your testimony yeah uh the client john the owner
should be on sure thank you
council what is the name again john pakella
all right i see them thank you jonathan pakella please raise your virtual hand and wait to be
this morning.
They'll be returning shortly.
Thank you.
can you guys hear me i can could you please state your name is spelled for the stenographer
uh my name is jonathan pekella that's j-o-n-a-t-h-a-n last name pekella p-e-k-a-l-a
do you swear or firm to tell the truth told truth nothing but truth yes council
john have you heard my testimony do you believe it to be true and accurate and do you adopt it as
your own yes thank you questions from the board
questions or comments from our attorney no questions at this time mr chairman
questions or comments from the virtual audience or there's no or the current audience
no hands mr chair planning commission madison matera planning commission staff the comprehensive
plan recommends no change to the existing rm1 residential multi-family zoning at this location
the off-street parking spaces are in existing condition for visitor accommodations the appellant
has not shown that there are unique physical conditions or circumstances of this property
that would prevent conformance with the code the planning commission recommends the board deny the
requested variance for visitor accommodations but grant the requested variance for parking
Sorry, I just want to put on record about the hardship. The property was advertised and sold based on it being visitor accommodation. It also provides, you know, an additional resource for traveling nurses and other folks that's not out of character, you know, for the existing neighborhood.
and my 2026 002 0619 13 north 16th street i vote yes temporary variance expires 8 30 8 20 30.
michael johns my vote is yes with proviso
cheryl gaston my booty chefs with proviso tenetta graham my vote is yes with proviso tyo in my vote
tanetta graham my vote is yes with proviso taya win my vote is yes with proviso so so rachel you
is yes with proviso.
have two more cases today right am i right yeah so we're going to put them together we'll go to
number eight right now um let's see here mi 2026 002 125 1208 south 27th street rachel pritzker
to state your name for the record rachel pritzker could you identify your client the relationship
to the property yeah my client is scott love and jonah fiegelman on behalf of grace ferry
27th street llc they're the owners of the property and our vice chair has a few questions sure good
afternoon um have you submitted your documents in exhibit five days in advance of this hearing
yes and do you waive the reading of the refusals and simply to the accuracy
yes all right thank you can show your screen up and see with the keys yeah and so this is 1208
right south 27th this is 1208 yep the other one we'll do is 12 18 sound right yep the only caveat
i want to make which i did talk to miss emerson about related to the refusal was the examiner
referenced the incorrect zoning code table with regard to height refusal so the refusal reference
is table 14701-2 instead of 14701-3, but Ms. Emerson's aware of it, and we did discuss we
should be okay to proceed. Just correct me if I'm wrong. Lynn's here. We're okay to proceed. Okay.
Thanks, Lynn. Okay. I'm still sharing my screen. Okay. So these cases are pretty similar. They're
literally corners of the same block um so this is 1208 south 27th street um this is um
an old refusal so originally the project proposed three units it's an existing commercial cmx2
um zoning um on on the corner of 27th street the 1200 block of 27th street
um we we actually revised this um to not do three units but to do one single family home
on this lot in particular even though it's zoned cmx2 the character of the block is residential
there's really no commercial that makes sense on this 1200 block of south 27th street we have
other major commercial corridors like grays ferry and washington avenue because of the small size
of this lot through the discussions with the community group we decided to do a single family
home as opposed to the three units even though again it was cmx2 and all we were previously
asking for was a waiver of the commercial space um but again the community wanted some homeownership
um and a little bit less density so um we decided to go with a single family home there's two uh
dimensional one use refusal one's dimensional refusal um you can't do a single family home in
cmx2 that's number one but additionally um and we because you have to provide a hundred percent the
first 30 feet of the property line is commercial which we're not providing in a single family home
and also um the roof deck access structure has to be set back an additional five feet
from the setback um you'll see as uh when logan dry goes through the plans just given the
relationship with the directly adjacent building that's there and the tightness of of where the
single family home is located this is the only place to reasonably um have the uh pilot house
that we're putting so we're proposing 46 feet it's not a total with 46 feet but given where the
pilot house is and logan will correct me if i'm wrong we're not providing that setback and it
looks higher in height although i believe the main roof line is 38 feet if not shorter than that
again this is the correction of the refusal from the planes examiner again this is just leave to
men we had originally proposed three units and then reduced it to one single family home
i'm just gonna go down to
show the site so this is the uh this is 1208 right here it's this uh corner lot here again
everything's the cmx2 at this corner and then rm1 on that block
this is just an aerial view so as you can see that 1208 is is quite small it's a little bit of a
encroachment from the directly adjacent property and so given its sort of small nature and also
the fact that it's a residential block the commercial cmx2 zoning just doesn't is not
feasible at this location to provide a commercial use in the ground floor again given sort of the
small size of it and even in the desire for some home ownership we're proposing a single family home
this is a front view um of the of the parcel as you can see sort of this overhang here with the
um of the of the parcel as you can see sort of this overhang here with the with the fence makes
with the fence
this sort of even smaller and so the dimensional relief uh requested from the uh pilot house and
the the setback just on the the roof line is makes it so that there's a viable outdoor space
uh for the property um everything else conforms with the code and again we're
not providing commercial on the ground floor here just a view from the other corner
There's a lot of similarly constructed multifamily homes and single-family homes as well, zoning posters.
This is the portions of the code. This requires the ground floor commercial.
This is the setback rules and height.
um this is just a prior uh permit uh with cmx2
um we met with the community group twice uh the last meeting was last night
um and uh we have a we have a letter from them yeah and we should have a letter of support um
from them for for both of the projects but again we addressed the primary concern was asking for
less density um and asking for a single family home which we we've done so this is their letter
of support and some additional letters of support from near neighbors if um logan dry can just be
brought on to quickly go through the plans logan
please pardon me sir they are coming back in now as a panelist
Hello?
Hi, Logan.
Could you please, have you been sworn in yet today?
Sorry, could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Sure, Logan Dry, L-O-G-A-N-D-R-Y.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Counsel?
Logan, can you go through the plans on the screen, specifically addressing the roof deck and the height refusals?
Yeah, I was going to say, if you zoom in, just so everybody can kind of see, everything's dimensionally compliant with the zoning code.
If you look at the pilot house right in the middle there where I've got the revision clouds, technically we need a 10-foot setback from all street frontages.
So you can see we exceed that 10-foot setback from the front street by, you know, five or six feet.
But if you look on the side there, we're just three inches short of being in compliance with the 10-foot setback required from the side street.
And as Rachel mentioned, that's just attributed to the width of the property.
The stairs, 36 inches wide.
The wall thicknesses, you know, we can't squeeze the width of that pilot house, the three or four inches that we need to be in compliance with the code.
So that, you know, shortage of width for the property is what's triggering that pilot house to be considered part of the overall building height from a, you know, on paper standpoint.
point but you know otherwise this is like a typical new construction where the height from
grade to the top of the roof is less than 38 feet the pilot house itself is 10 feet
it's just that technicality of being four inches too wide that you know negates that additional
height refusal. Again, these are the exterior elevations. You know, we chose the traditional
brick material that's very similar to a lot of the other new development in the area,
along with some metal paneling and some wood paneling composite. You know, you'll see our
first floor is put out of the ground four feet. And then we've got plenty of windows and bays
throughout and you'll see in the floor plan how we use those to you know sort
of thoughtfully craft the single family given the rather narrow lot so again you
know you come off the 27th Street you've got your main entrance kitchen living
dining area the first floor then bedroom bath as well as some mechanical and
storage space that same staircase then takes you up to the second floor we've
got two nicely pointed bedrooms two baths as well as a full laundry room and then
Uh, and then that same staircase takes you to the third floor where again, you've got your master suite. Um, you have your, uh, bedroom in the front there, your walk-in closet in the middle, and then your, uh, en suite bath in the back. And then one more set of steps up takes you to that pilot house, which again, you know, did our best to meet the setbacks from the front rear end sides.
that same staircase takes to the third floor where again you've got your mask
But again, that four inch shortage of width is kind of working against us with the pilot house.
But that's about it on this one.
If you guys have any specific questions about the layout, as Rachel mentioned, you know, we did initially start, you know, as a multifamily.
But, you know, after hearing the community's concerns and sort of re-evaluating the design, you know, figured, you know, there's a very generous single family that can be had here that, you know, again, I think fits within the context of other singles and multis in the area and does offer that home ownership that a multifamily would not in this case.
Rachel, you want to bring the owner on?
Jonah or Scott?
Mr. Chair, Council, Scott Love will be rejoining as a panelist.
Thank you.
you guys hear me yes please state your name and spell for the stenographer
scott love s-c-o-t-t-l-o-v-e do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing
but the truth i do counsel scott have you heard my testimony today do you believe it to be true
and accurate and do you adopt it as your own i do thank you questions from the board
this is considered an attached structure correct
yes it will be attached to the neighboring on one side right so they're both considered
attached structures yes yes okay
questions from our attorney you got a question yes um the overhang from the adjoining
what's going to be the adjoining property what are we doing about that
Logan are you able to address that yes if you look closely if you want to zoom
in on the plan there Rachel the first floor plan shows it the existing
building next to us has a breezeway built into their property since there's
no alley in the back of any of these so we actually have that accommodated for
so in other words you know we're not building up against that and that
overhang is fully within their property line so that's going to be maintained on
their side for egress um and then you know when we get to the upper floors you know the the top
of that existing building would touch the uh upper floor walls of our building on that side so all
that to say that the existing breezeway that's that's on that new construction building is fully
within the neighbor's property line and is not going to be um you know blocked or affected at
by uh what we're building because legally we can't uh go over the property line so okay that that
from the way it looked it looked like it was hanging over your yeah okay all right thank you
questions from our attorney no questions at this time the comments from the virtual audience
mr chair i do not see any further hands raised planning commission
Madison Matera, Planning Commission staff. The comprehensive plan recommends a change in zoning
from the existing CMX2 commercial mixed use to RSA5 residential single family.
The appellant has not demonstrated that there are unique physical conditions or circumstances of
this property that would prevent conformance with the code in regards to maximum building height.
The proposed lack of active ground floor use is in harmony with the surrounding neighborhood and
would not be required under the recommended zoning. The Planning Commission recommends the
grant the requested variance for ground floor commercial space but deny the requested variance
for height so i'll just put on record that logan explained what the need for the additional height
is and it's given the width of the um stairwell and given the small width of the lot and we will
still be at 38 feet with a 10-foot pilot house which is per code is logan want to say something
here is that logan do you wanna yeah i mean again the only the only reason why we're getting the
yeah i mean again the only the only reason why we're getting the height refusal on this is in
height refusal on this is in an ordinary
an ordinary scenario if that pilot house we're meeting all of the required setbacks so 10 foot
from all street frontages five foot from the rear yard uh sorry five foot from the rear facade
we've got the five foot rear facade we have and exceed the 10 foot from the 27th street frontage
but on the side there because our lots just a hair over 13 and change wide we can't get the 10
foot from that side street plus the 36 inch wide stair plus the six inch thicknesses of the
wall framing for the pilot house. So we're showing right now, I think nine foot eight and seven
eights, whereas we require 10 feet. So as I say, we're about four inches shy of meeting that, but
in the spirit of the code and the actual massing of the building, it would be indistinguishable
compared to a 10 foot setback from that side street you know whereas we're at nine foot
eight and seven eight so because of that the city then counts that pilot house towards the overall
building height rather than breaking it into you know main roof and then accessory structure on top
of that thank you so mi 2026 002 125 1208 south 27th street i vote yes with proviso
her amended refusal dated july 14 2026. michael johns my vote is yes with proviso
cheryl gaston my vote is yes with proviso tanetta graham my vote is yes with proviso hi ellen my
vote is yes with proviso so rachel we're moving on to n i 20 26 0 0 2 1 2 7 12 18 south 27 street
just for the record state your name rachel pritzker and rachel is this very similar to the other one
um it it's make the presentation you think you have to make okay yeah yeah and our vice chair
sure could you identify uh the owner yeah it's the same owner scott love and jonah fiegelman
and our our vice chair has a few other questions good afternoon again um they have you submitted
your documents and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing yes and do you waive the reading
of the refusals and stipulate to the accuracy yes all right thank you you can share your screen and
proceed with the case so this is 1216 through 1218 south 27th street um this proposes uh these are
consolidated lots that are 1561.7 square feet according to a consolidation plan similar to the
other site this is the corner this is the other side corner on that same block um this is two
lots that have been consolidated to one um and the proposals for four units um for multifamily units